Over the weekend, I had another clueless dude try to give me crap for “working so hard to manufacture outrage,” and for always “choosing to be offended.” It’s a tired and unoriginal refrain, but I’m going to try to do something a little different this time. I’m going to agree with clueless dude, at least to an extent. Because he’s right. For me, a great deal of the things I write about, and the fact that I’m upset by some of what I see in the SF/F community, these are choices.

A few of the things I’ve chosen to be offended about lately…

Big name authors publicly mocking and belittling people for asking for representation in SF/F.

The rewriting of history to present last year’s SFWA Bulletin mess as being about a single cover as opposed to an ongoing problem, one that culminated with two big name authors using the Bulletin as a platform to accuse those who disagree with them of being “liberal fascists” and anonymous cowards.

A major convention belittling concerns about sexual harassment and refusing to implement a policy … and then minimizing and belittling the experience of multiple individuals who reported being sexually harassed at that convention.

The backlash against a Hugo host being transformed into a factually incorrect narrative that rakes an individual woman over the coals in major media outlets for the crime of expressing her fear and anger.

Generally, when folks recycle the accusation that people are looking for things to be offended by, the word “offended” is used as a minimizing tactic. It suggests overly fragile and sensitive individuals with bruised feelings. A more accurate choice would be “pissed off,” “hurt,” or “sick of this crap.” Kameron Hurley uses the term “rage” when explaining that the anger doesn’t come from a minor, isolated incident.

The thing is, most of these incidents don’t hurt me directly. Representation in SF/F? As a straight, white, American male, I’m incredibly overrepresented in my genre. Conventions that don’t take steps to reduce sexual harassment? I’ve been harassed a total of once in more than a decade of congoing, and it’s not something I’m particularly worried about happening to me again. The threats, hatred, and vitriol aimed at women online and in the real world? Hey, it’s not coming toward me, so who cares?

When you’re not the one being hurt, you might not even notice the problem. You might decide it’s all blown out of proportion. Or maybe you admit that yeah, there might be a problem here, but you blow it off because the solution would inconvenience you in some way, or make you uncomfortable.

When you see someone saying they’re hurt or afraid, you can choose to mock that person. You can choose to ignore their concerns. You can choose to blow them off by saying they’re manufacturing outrage and looking for reasons to be offended, as if pain and anger and fear are just another hobby, like collecting spores, molds, and fungus. You can choose to ignore the evidence, to disbelieve the repeated stories of ongoing harassment and the countless people speaking out about specific incidents that make them feel unwelcome and unwanted in your community. You can choose to interpret anger as “bullying,” and calls for inclusion as “political correctness run wild.”

You could also choose to listen. You can choose to believe that when someone says, “Hey, this is hurting me,” they’re telling the truth. You can look around at how racially homogenous most conventions are and believe the people telling you why they feel unwelcome, instead of dismissing it as a coincidence or making up falsehoods about how “those people” just don’t read or don’t care about SF/F. You can recognize that just because a problem might not directly affect you, that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.

You’re right. I choose to be offended angry. I see people talking about how finding someone like them in a SF/F story literally saved their life. And then I see people responding with mockery and derision to calls for broader representation. I see people who have traditionally been ignored and silenced raising their voices to speak about their experiences, only to have those experiences dismissed as “butthurt” by those who haven’t had to live through them.

When I choose to be angry, and to speak out about things, it’s because I see people hurting.

No, that’s not quite right. It’s because I see the that the things we’re doing are hurting people. That pain isn’t imaginary. It’s not a cover to try to take over the genre and control everyone else, as one commenter suggested. It’s real. And I’ve got to believe that if more people could get over their discomfort and defensiveness and just listen, they might see it too. They might even be able to help solve some of the problems.

Basically, when people talk about something that’s hurting them, you can choose to care. Or you can choose not to.

46 Comments

BoneladyMarch 11, 2014 @ 10:25 am

Yes. Exactly. I teach at a medium sized public university. One of the courses I teach covers human diversity and this attitude is one of the hardest to deal with in my students, who are mostly straight and white. I get airy assertions that “It used to be like that, but its all better now,” for most groups I talk about – including women. I have students tell me that “I don’t see color/religion/ethnicity/gender”, and get very offended when I tell them, “Yes, you do. It may not MATTER to you, but you see it.” Who can’t understand why those people are making such a big deal out of little things. I assigned my students to read and write about John Scalzi’s “Straight White Male: The lowest difficulty setting” and had one straight white male complain to my department head that I was prejudiced against straight white males. So, yeah, I know.

And the only thing we can do is keep slogging along and speaking out. I was born in 1955 and I remember when things were worse. Yes, things are getting better, if slowly – but we can’t sit back and expect the world to fix itself. We have to fix it. I fix it my way by trying to teach students tolerance and how to look at differences in others. You do it by writing, not just this blog, but your books. And we have to believe that we can help, or why get up in the morning? As you say, we can help by listening – a point I need to make to my students more strongly. Thanks for pointing that out, btw.

Keep up the good work, and keep choosing to be angry, please and I will too.

DTLMarch 11, 2014 @ 10:26 am

Some good points there. Misinformation really is the risk of trying to discuss/argue on Twitter (and on Tumblr and other websites), there’s no way to have a central discussion and misinformation spreads very very rapidly. I rather liked this blogpost about trying to figure out what exactly was going with the Hugo backlash and how to respond: http://www.deusexmachinatio.com/blog/2014/3/4/let-he-who-is-without-sin

Well said, Jim. Choosing not to be angry about those things is an exercise of privilege — if it doesn’t directly affect you, then yeah, why worry? But with even a bit of empathy, standing by while people are marginalized, belittled, assaulted and worse becomes intolerable. To speak up about that (or, better, to not get in the way of people speaking up for themselves about that) is not political correctness — it’s basic human decency.

DotMarch 11, 2014 @ 11:30 am

Our cultural norms are changing rapidly. This is how it changes. I’m a child of the 60s – you should have seen the fur fly then. 🙂 There are people trying to hold on to the past in unfortunate ways and those for whom no amount of change (or lack of it) will be enough because they are getting their high off hunting for someone to attack on and off the internet. I’ve been helping some students study race riots recently – do you think everyone involved was there for the greater good?

Speaking as an outsider – I’m a librarian who orders books and only catches bits and pieces of the battle – some of this stuff should be a no-brainer. You provide rules to protect everyone at a com because that’s what’s right and you want your com to grow. You include women and people of color both in your books and groups because you want readers to include women and people of color. The more inclusive you are, the bigger the readership pool is so embrace the future and a wider more varied readership.

Also, I’ve read some comments on threads – the latest from Baen book people John Scalzi linked to on twitter – and don’t writers realize that their remarks, which are – smarmy comes to mind, cloying? Patronizing? I can’t think of the right word, are very off putting to readers. I’ll buy their books anyway, that’s my job, to provide books for different readers. It doesn’t help to sell books however to know that they are pricks in real life.

Veronica SchanoesMarch 11, 2014 @ 11:52 am

the word “offended” is used as a minimizing tactic.

Yep. That’s why I don’t refer to statements or actions as being “offensive” any more. “Offensive” makes it about somebody’s hurt feelings, and that’s a subjective call that’s easily dismissed. I call ’em like I see ’em’–that means “racist,” “misogynist,” “objectifying,” etc. I don’t care if nobody in a given room is offended by a racist joke, for example. That doesn’t make the joke itself less racist, and it’s the racism that’s the problem, not the offense.

FarahMarch 11, 2014 @ 12:14 pm

DTL the site you link to makes an interesting conflation and links me to words I didn’t use.

Nowhere in my post did I use this phrase, ” a misogynist, racist, all around offensive fellow”. I did say ”
This is a man who has made a fortune (6 million a year at one point) from abusing others—particularly women—live on air.” and ”
It is my firm belief that a person who has publicly harassed, humiliated and expressed prejudice to a wide range of groups in public and live media spaces, including award shows, is not a fit person to take the role of host of the Hugo Awards.”
I don’t have a problem with being disagreed with, but I do not like having my name linked to words I didn’t use.

Lenora RoseMarch 11, 2014 @ 12:40 pm

Farah: I think the article means to describe the impression given around the internet, the rumour version rather than your actual statement. It definitely doesn’t make that as clear as it ought, or say that this is not your actual words presented. (OTOH, it looks like she searched for a link and found your own comments deleted?)

I do think it is the first good summary of the misgivings I’ve seen aired around this particular controversy that does its best not to insult anyone. I disagree with a fair bit of it – it nowhere addressed the fact that there were problems PRIOR TO the public announcement that might have, if dealt with then, fended off a lot of the internet explosion she critiques. But at least I understand its concerns and it doesn’t seem to be coming from a place of reactionary “manufacturing outrage” plaints as per Jim’s OP here.

Lenora RoseMarch 11, 2014 @ 12:42 pm

” I don’t care if nobody in a given room is offended by a racist joke, for example. That doesn’t make the joke itself less racist, and it’s the racism that’s the problem, not the offense.”

I think i need to borrow this tactic and explanation, Veronica. It makes clear the thing I so often struggle with when dealing with these discussions.

Patti L.March 11, 2014 @ 1:30 pm

For you teachers working on this problem – Assign the reading of, or enact for yourself a version of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Between_the_Classes (in case the link doesn’t make it past anti spam, it’s the Wiki article link for “The War Between The Classes” by Gloria D. Miklowitz) I was struck by this book back… probably within a year of when it was first published. There’s also always “Tootsie” with Dustin Hoffman, and a TV movie about a female journalist disguising herself as male, what it taught her.

I’m also approving the comment by Veronica Schanoes. I was raised racist, which is mildly ironic as I may be as much as 1/4 Native American, and that’s been a despised minority since Europeans started seriously colonizing North America. I can almost plot how various awareness movements have been sanding down my knee-jerk objections to various groups, at least in the obvious, spiky bits. I’m heavily aware that under the sanding, bulges are still there. I still laugh internally about jokes that were funny when I heard them, but that I now recognize are prejudiced, racist, sexist, and hurtful. What I do now, is leave them unspoken. I am not perpetuating them. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a joke that will instead celebrate such differences. Probably there are jokes that attempt it. Part of the difficulty, though, is that senses of humor vary so widely, and people who have been hurt, or (as someone else said,) WANT a cause to blow up at someone, anyone, will take exception to things that are well meant.
It largely goes back to the “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” principle.
I … try. Sometimes I am complicit through silence, but I try.

While this summary is less vicious than some, it’s also got some inaccuracies. I agree that sometimes we all need to do a little fact-checking, but from everything I’ve been reading, to equate Ross to Leno, for example, doesn’t really hold up.

There seems to be a trade-off with authorial nastiness, from what I’ve seen. It probably alienates some people, but can attract others who agree with whatever the author is being mean about. Whether or not that’s a net gain or loss probably depends on way too many factors to be able to predict…

Jim, you always put it so well, and so simply. Your last sentence sums it up in one-syllable words. So it’s obviously not an intellectual disability or reading problem for people who don’t get it.

They are choosing not to care about other people.

Which, ya know, it’s a free internet. Just ‘fess up to it.

HelenSMarch 11, 2014 @ 7:21 pm

That’s also why I like the expression “I’m not offended. I’m contemptuous” so much. It isn’t dependent on my being a victim.

lkeke35March 11, 2014 @ 8:45 pm

To which I would add that since they understand that “not caring ” is not acceptable and rather than own that they have the privilege of doing just that, it’s much more convenient for them to create excuses and derailments. That way it’s not on them to change or be a better person either.

TheAtomicGalMarch 11, 2014 @ 10:22 pm

Right on, HelenS and thanks and credit due to Melissa at Shakesville for that particularly apt phrasing.

I have been hurt. I never question when someone says they are hurt. How could it not be true if they are saying it? Nobody who isn’t hurting inside says that they are. Even if they really are making something up, you dont do that unless you’re hurting. Hurt hurt hurt. It’s like a broken record that is stuck repeating the same half formed note. I am sick of it. I have been made fun of all my life. I have been abused. I have been afraid to be myself. I have been told I would never succeed. I have been treated like a pariahfor all kinds of things. And I am not even talking about the SFF community. I am just a harmless white girl. I can’t imagine what other must go through. If we as a society spent half as much time building each other up as we do beating each other down, I wonder what we could have made of ourselves by now?
Honestly, I choose to ignore the crap. I acknowledge it. But I focus on happier things. Life throws enough crap at me already. Why should I have to step into the middle of a crap flinging fest? I decided sometime last year that the SFWA just does not represent me. So I don’t give it my time or energy. If others want to try to save it great! Meanwhile I am trying to write over here, deal with constant worries over how much longer I have on this planet, and whether I will still be able to type if my brain and spine tumors are the reason for the odd numbness in my hands and feet. Maybe you all don’t have to worry about a small tumor blocking your pancreatic duct and micro tumors in your eyeballs. And living without adrenal glands, a duodenum, half your pancreas,gall bladder, etc. But some of us do. And some of us think there are bigger problems in our lives than a few people wanting better representation and protection from being hurt. So there!

I meant that last to be against all the bullies and naysayers. Maybe it wasn’t so clear. So I wanted to clear it up before I got flak for it. I just mean to say that people need to stop whining about things that are changes for the better. There are worse things out there than having a new way of doing things.

That article really is very biased, especially since it pushes the myth (deconstructed here, with timeline by David Perry) that a) the anger against Ross was lead from the States; and b) it was based upon biased Daily Mail reporting about things that had happened many years ago.

That is provably untrue. The story broke at 10.15 am Greenwich Mean Time, that is, when most of the US was firmly tucked up in bed, and it broke with the simultaneous announcement by the Loncon twitter account that Ross was hosting and by Farah Mendelson announcing (in a detailed post, which has since been made private) that she was resigning from the committee since she felt the Chairs had not taken into account the difficulties Ross’ public persona were likely to cause at a time when issues such as harassment at conventions and the need for effective, implemented harassment policies was very much front and centre. The first wave of response was immediate and centred around people who were very much involved in volunteering at Loncon in one role or another, including people who had been involved in crafting the anti-harassment policy.

All of those people knew exactly what Ross’s public persona was and didn’t have to rely on tabloid reports for it; he’s been hosting major late night chat shows for over a decade and doing radio. Not all of the immediate responders were initially hostile to the idea of Ross doing it, but were very shocked by how it appeared to have been managed and announced; for example, everyone was much more aware of “Ross the controversial talk show host” than “Ross the SF fan”. Quite a lot of people actually thought it was an April Fool joke set off too early.

What fuelled the initial storm was Ross’s own response on Twitter, where someone tweeted that she wanted her money back and he responded “Fine, I’ll buy it off you and give it to someone less stupid.”

Thanks for the clarification, Amanda. And I’m sorry for all of the crap you’ve been having to deal with. It definitely sounds like you’ve got more important things to save your spoons for.

Lenora RoseMarch 12, 2014 @ 9:27 am

I was pretty sure it was based on the first paragraph, but I did have to reread a few times. Thanks for the clarification.

Also, even if you meant you yourself cannot bring yourself to fight for this stuff, it definitely doesn’t sound like you’re making excuses or against the idea, just too worn out to join in.

Take care of yourself first.

Amanda June HagartyMarch 12, 2014 @ 5:57 pm

Yeah, sorry that I rambled on a tangent. It was late and I was tired. I kind of was trying to say, “hey all you people fussing about having to suddenly respect women and treat people nicely–get some friggin perspective why doncha”

Amanda June HagartyMarch 12, 2014 @ 6:40 pm

What you are probably sensing, Lenora, (aside from the fact that I was tired and starting to ramble) is that I have already run into people who are fighting for tolerance, being unacceptably intolerant themselves (just not about the things they were fighting for tolerance for–convenient, eh?). So I admit to a teensy bit of sourness toward the side of tolerance, even though it’s the team I am rooting for from my seat on the sidelines. And yes, I have been on the Internet since 1990 or so, I am definitely worn out of screen quibbles in general.

Don’t take my “I am staying out of all the crap” stuff too seriously….I wrote that comment after all.

If you ask anyone who knows me I am a very positive and compassionate person. I care about people, and I don’t like to see them hurt. I recently gave a critique to a friend in which I thought I was mean, though necessary, and he thanked me for being “so nice.” LOL. The only way to stay positive is to constantly choose on purpose not to be negative or dwell in negativity, at least for me.

Ursula Le Guin recently spoke in Seattle and said something like: “It’s not about putting the gun in the hands of the woman, it’s about taking the gun away from everyone and seeing what happens.” Maybe we should try a new tactic. Everyone who supports tolerance, love, and stopping the hurt should send a single yellow rose to one of those big name authors. 😀

Thanks for this, Jim. Whenever I get the “Why are you so easily offended?” bingo, my response has, more often than not, become “Why aren’t YOU offended?” Because the things that have made us angry in SF/F (which is itself a microcosm of overarching mainstream culture, and those lines between “SF/F” and mainstream are getting mighty blurry) are things people should be angry about. Racial discrimination should make us ashamed. We should be offended by sexism and misogyny. Cissexism and homophobia should be met with vocal, passionate pushback. We should be angry about ableism. All of these things make SF/F off-putting and exclusionary to people who would otherwise enjoy those genres and taking part in and contributing to those communities. I love SF/F. I love my fandoms. Sharing them and getting to introduce them to others is a joy and I want to be able to do so with the confidence that they’ll find it welcoming and reflective of a variety of experiences, and filled with people who will have their back and give support when they say “Hey, you stepped on my foot. Maybe you didn’t mean to, but it still hurt!” instead of going, “Well, it’s YOUR fault that your foot’s so easily hurt in the first place and you’re a total meanie bully for telling me that I hurt you!”

Yes, so much of this. I’m one of those over-represented types. And if it was just me, I probably wouldn’t mind that. But it’s not just me – there’s so many other people out there, and they all deserve the same dignity, respect, and representative entertainments that I enjoy.

I was raised believing that equality and brotherliness had won out in society at large – that the discrimination of the past was anathema to our culture – and that this was all a good thing. It wasn’t until later that I began to learn that the victory over petty hatreds and discrimination was far from complete. But the core lesson from that childhood remained: equality and brotherliness and eschewing discrimination of all forms is still an inherently good, humane, and proper goal.

That core ideology isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and I believe it’s because of that that I was open to learning about the experiences of others and refining and revising my worldview to recognize the pain that others are experience and the shortcomings in my own thought systems.

And as someone who has been the recipient of harassment both within and without geeky spaces, it *makes me feel a hell of a lot better* that SF/F dudes with a lot of clout are standing up and saying it’s unacceptable.

BrennMarch 15, 2014 @ 4:44 am

I, for one, am glad you’re speaking up. I’ve been silenced most of my life by voices like theirs. And I’m pissed off as hell. Hearing other voices against theirs gives me courage to actually use that anger.

So any time someone declares anything to “hurt” them, we should just bend over backward and do everything we can to suit that person?

Why should we object to people harassing a white male over what people assume he might do? And we shouldn’t call those people out on their hateful campaign or dare to express any differing opinion because it’ll make them feel “hurt”, right?

Ah, social justice. Where women can express in incredibly disrespectful means an opinion which no one is allowed to question, yet men are the ones with “privilege”.

Ah, social justice. Where women can express in incredibly disrespectful means an opinion which no one is allowed to question, yet men are the ones with “privilege”.

Ah, privilege. Where men get so uptight and upset and afraid of the idea that a woman might be disrespectful to them, while women are upset and afraid that men will harass, stalk, beat, rape, and murder them.

MartinMarch 17, 2014 @ 4:45 pm

You say “It is my firm belief that a person who has publicly harassed, humiliated and expressed prejudice to a wide range of groups in public and live media spaces, including award shows, is not a fit person to take the role of host of the Hugo Awards”.

However a large number of people, including many fans and feminists, do not accept that this is an accurate description of JR’s behaviour. Your initial posting referred only to a couple of tabloid articles which are part of a rather biased campaign against him and particularly mislead people because they they were in a context that made no mention of his many associations with our genre.

Indeed the second ‘sin’ they quote against him is that he berated the BBC for not having enough ethnic employees involved in program production. Something which I doubt any readers of this blog would find objectionable.

Jonathan Ross is not by any stretch of the imagination a Saint however he is entitled to be attacked, or defended, on the basis of things which he has actually done not on dubious claims in the tabloids or worries, inspired by those claims, of what he might do.

The best person to defend him is Jonathan Ross himself. In this YouTube segment he discusses a previous incident and his attitude to what is acceptable in comedy with a transgender journalist (warning the language gets fairly basic at times, but it is ‘on topic’ and not gratuitous). I’m sure some people will come away with the opinion that don’t want him presenting the Hugos but at least then they will be making up their mind on the basis of evidence not opinion.

For those interested in the link quoted by DTL above this is a podcast which expands on the argument that twitter was the wrong place to have this discussion and that the nature of the medium itself led to much of the outrage and offence. For the iTunes version go here.

I don’t live in a hole, so I do know about the “cover controversy,” but as someone who really doesn’t care about the sci-fi establishment and what it thinks, I tend to vote with my dollars. After reading Libriomancer, with its queer, sexy, full-fleshed heroine (finally, a heroine I can identify with!) and a straight white male hero who isn’t intimidated by that fact, and with it’s cast of diverse secondary characters (including one with autism, just like my youngest son), Jim Hines and those who write stories like this will be happy to know that I’ll be voting for them! (Not to mention trying to follow in their footsteps as I launch my own writing career)…

I’ve been waiting my whole life for books like this. So have many other fantasy readers, I’m sure. While I feel it’s important that the issue be named, I feel it’s far, far more important for folks like Jim to keep writing the books that will eventually outmass the “straight teenaged male” fantasies out there and make this debate a thing of the past. Go you!

ErikaMay 17, 2014 @ 11:09 pm

This! This so much. Thank you.

ErikaMay 17, 2014 @ 11:17 pm

I had seen the titles of your books in passing on Goodreads and thought “Hmm interesting” but never took the time to check them out until today when a Goodreads reviewer I respect linked to this blog post. I’m here to say that you have won this Black Hispanic fantasy reading (from wayyyy back) female’s fanship and regard with this post and I will be showing my love the usual way: with my hard earned dollars, recommendations and honest reviews.

Thank you for realizing there’s a problem and for actually trying to do something about it. I’m off now to buy one of your books.